Besides being a great announcer, Peter Bolgar is also a thoroughly decent chap. I remember in the early 80s writing to him at the Television Centre asking him if he would mind sending me his autograph along with a couple of the other announcers. Weeks went by and nothing happened and I assumed he had forgotten about me. Then, one afternoon as I returned home from school, I found a thick envelope had arrived containing the signatures of the entire BBC tv announcing team, along with a letter apologising for the delay caused by the complicated rota system they had in place. A lovely man and still going strong I believe, though long-since retired.
If you lived in the 70s it was often looked at as a huge change from the post-war years. Yet this marvellous window into early 1971 shows how orderly society was back then, TV close down, at midnight: pubs closed at 11pm. three shifts for many workers, with pay differentials. And was the UK a healthy and happier place than it is today ?
Assorted electronic versions _were_ created later, but that was the first one! (I think globes had been used before as well, not sure whether moving though.)
Looking at the clock, British television went to bed very early back then at 12.05am. In the states, ABC, CBS and NBC were all on air until at least 1am. Each had their own late night talk show - NBC had Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, CBS had Merv Griffin and ABC had Dick Cavett each on air until 1am.
@@jamesmartin2063 it’s 50 odd years ago but, from memory children’s programmes were few and far between in the summer months and this ‘factual’ programme went out in the children’s slot as if it may be a forerunner of a series. The summer of ‘71 was a particularly warm one and I doubt many saw it. There definitely wasn’t a series.
This is great video and does show how the studios camera was filming the mechanical globe (The Globe known i believe as the "Noddy Symbol" symbol, always wondered why, does anybody know). The BBC always use to use caption boards if there was a problem with the programme being broadcast and interrupt the transmission and show the captions instead with music and it was damed annoying at times especially if you liked a favourite programme or film, everybody use to moan and groan about it. Now-a-days the BBC very rarely breakdown during transmissions as everything is digital. The BBC had a certain class all of there own back then, not anymore sadly. The Mechanical Globes, Christmas or otherwise were a work of art i reckon. I've often wondered what company made them for the Beeb, it's a pity that no film was made showing how the Globes wee produced that would be very interesting to see.
Noddy (generally called Nodd by staff) was the name given to single pan and tilt camera arrangement, not the globe machine. The ability to tilt down (or up) looked a bit like someone nodding. The various captions were cleverly angled so that the alignment of camera and viewed caption didn't cause image distortion.
Fascinating to see the set up of all the captuons they had and just had to point the camera too. They had one exactly the same for all the football scores on Grandstand.
The difference with Grandstand was that someone was behind the camera moving from caption to caption. The noddy camera was motorised and responded to the announcers switches. The captions needed a light whereas the globe was Internally lit and this was included in the operation. If you see the BBC 1980s clock confusion video you can see an example.
@@johnking5174Yes. That was in the days when workmen would turn up at building sites with a jacket and tie, - perhaps not their Sunday best but something no far off.
They used to give mission updates occasionally between programmes. Apollo 14 was between 31/1/71 & 9/2/71. I think this recording is Tuesday 9th Feb. 1971
@@peterwilliamskelhorn6675 the date to remember was early hours of the 9th of September 2022. Every other radio station showed a News special and whilst the Bauer and Global network played a light music mix of ballads.
Nice to see the sets . I wonder what has happened to the revolving world set and the other displays like the revolving Christmas idents ? Have they been saved or have they been binned ??
My worst nightmare as a TV announcer would be to play Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles because I accidentally played the wrong track from the CD of National Anthems - or the Japanese or Korean national anthem!
This version of the national anthem being played slowly, out of curiosity, how long did they use this version? then the slightly faster version thereabouts?
This version was definitely on the 1979 Christmas closedown. So 1980 must be the changeover year. Some of the regions were still using this recording later.
@@bdavebaldwin Ah ok then, that's interesting, thanks for that bit of info. Closedowns on tv in general its amazing to think that the bbc1, Itv and channel 4 used to do this prior to the late 80s and 1997 for bbc1 and channel 4 when they did for instance showing the programmes next day, weather, showing a clock , the announcements and then playing the national anthem or some music or station theme.
There was also some BBC2 closedowns that I came across from around the 70s/early 80s and on some of those they had a piece of music which played before the screen faded to black and then some after the early to mid 80s I wonder if that was possibly to get the channel closed down as quick as possible then?
@@Metalman8713 BBC1 seems to try and follow the schedule timings to the minute BBC2 seemed to amble on as it chose. The goblin type ident Christmas 1993 got played out in full as if someone forgot to turn it off. There are several examples of classical music being played over still images for no obvious reason
@@bdavebaldwin I had a mock closedown from 1968 and I’d put the slower version of the anthem in there and put it up on Dailymotion at the time when I was 18. Good times as it was a flash recreation.
I don't like 24h TV and still don't like it now. It's just a cheap dumping ground for gambling teleshopping all night news etc and I don't see the point of it, if people want anything through the night, why don't they get it through an on-demand or streaming service, or record something on a PVR unit for later viewing? What a lazy society we have become with this unnecessary behemoth of broadcasting....
In the last 2 weeks… a giant tv screen fell on a dancer in Hong Kong, a volcanic eruption is trying to tear Iceland in half and Putin had a face to face meeting with the president of Turkey. I haven’t heard any of this on what are supposed to be ‘News Channels’ - or is it my fault for missing it as my BBC attention span goes beyond knitting at the commonwealth games.
@@bdavebaldwin The BBC didn't cover world events on it's national terrestrial TV channels as it does today, amalgamating BBC World and BBC News together overnight to share resources and save on costs, opting out at 5.55am to split the feeds so BBC World doesn't carry BBC Breakfast from the UK, which overseas viewers outside the UK who don't pay the BBC licence fee aren't officially entitled to receive due to broadcast copyright issues, except with an historic agreement to carry BBC programming on cable to subscribers in the Benelux countries close to the UK, which have been carrying BBC 1 (London) and BBC-2 (National) for years, and they still do today. Some viewers of a very restricted area to North West Europe, from the Astra 2 satellites via 28.2 degrees East on the heavily restricted UK only spotbeam, can, with a suitable sized dish and FTA satellite receiver, pick up UK TV services, which unofficially, they aren't entitled to receive. As you go further across the continent, away from North West Europe, the UK TV channels delivered via Astra 2 @ 28.2 degrees East through the UK spotbeam rapidly disappear. This prevents broadcast rights having to be paid for the whole of Europe, which is what would happen, if the BBC used Astra 2 European beam capacity, to illicitly transmit it's UK only programmes to the whole of Europe. Programme makers, movie studios, and film catalogue / archive programme back catalogue owners make money from international film and programme sales / distribution and wouldn't be happy for their output to be broadcast to Europe unrestricted, but I think this is sour grapes, because Talking Pictures TV, That's TV UK and the defunct Forces TV did just that, and the former two still on air, still do this along with Challenge TV (old gameshows). Older re-run programming apparently, doesn't attract as higher royalty fees, as much more modern programming and films demand, or do require.
It made more sense before digital TV, as well. ITV were criticised for having different stations operating at the weekends, back when they did that. The alternatives are 24h operation or leaving radio spectrum simply unused some of the time, which would be rather wasteful. Besides, no PVRs back when 24h was being established as the norm (and VCRs were not as simple to use). Streaming might even kill rerun farms eventually, though.
Every day until October 1997 BBC1 closed with it every night. When they went “24 hours” the anthem vanished. It was carried over from the cinemas (where the public used to hurtle out to avoid it).
@@oscarcrane1790 they only used the normal clock for those year’s anyway. I didn’t get a VHS recorder until 1980 but, I did film the closedown’s from 1977 and they didn’t use the ident just a picture of the Queen. They seem to be very touchy about clocks (even though they don’t use them now) there was a matching clock on the 1st of the 60 BBC years celebration… never seen again.
@@oscarcrane1790 I’m pretty sure they actually used the santa ident. I remember thinking it was odd not to show the pudding and then go and use a not very pretty revolving head.
It was filmed in early February 1971 for a programme shown on Wednesday 18 August 1971 at 16:55. That day was a baking hot day in the UK and knowing sensible children would be outside at this time the BBC shovelled out as many repeats and cheap programmes they could find.
@@AntarcticaTelevision BBC 1 woke up again at 16:20 which left just a hour and thirty minutes (minus Play School, Jackanory and the Adventures of Parsley) just room to squeeze in two other programmes…. Those were the days.
@@bdavebaldwin They may have used the faster anthem for better sound and tonsave time. The slow version may have been considered sombre, and may have been used for royal deaths. I remember coming across a closedown recorded on the day of Walis the Dutchess of Windsor's death in 1986; they used the slow anthem that day.
Probably because way back in time people actually used to sing to it. Trying to sing to the later version might sound a bit rushed. (and if I tried it …. Terrible)
@@johnking5174 there used to be a public information film and short weather forecast before closedown so most people would have already turned the tv off.
